AN Italian paper firm has made an offer to take over part of the production of Blackburn's Sappi mill, it was confirmed today.

If Sappi accepts the offer for its cast coated paper brand it will result in about 60 job losses at the Feniscowles site - more than a quarter of the workforce.

Although Sappi has stressed that no final decision has yet been taken on the future of production of cast coated papers at the site, the binding offer from the Favini group in Italy makes the ending of production at Blackburn look likely.

If the deal goes through the cast coated operation at Blackburn will end in May and Favini will then produce the paper at a mill in Italy.

Although Sappi have said that it hoped some of the job losses would be voluntary, compulsory redundacies are thought to be inevitable.

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